Red Fort Capital Plans $500 Million Real Estate Fund

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Red Fort Capital Advisors Pvt., a
real estate private equity fund that manages more than $1
billion of Indian assets, plans to raise $500 million next year
to invest in homes and offices in Asia’s third-largest economy.

The company has invested about half of its $500 million Red
Fort India Real Estate Fund II raised in January this year,
Managing Director Subhash Bedi said in an interview in Singapore
yesterday.

Raising funds for real estate in India is tough as the
nation’s biggest developers fail to rein in record debt as they
grapple with high borrowing costs, dwindling sales and banks
reluctant to lend to them. That, coupled with the government’s
flip-flop on major policy reforms, including foreign direct
investment in retail and tax treaties with Mauritius, are
confusing foreign investors, Bedi said.

“It is a difficult climate to raise money for India
today,” he said. Still, “the fundamental dynamics of Indian
real estate haven’t changed, yet there is an aversion of capital
to the sector, and with that aversion comes opportunity for the
people willing to deploy capital.”

Red Fort, based in New Delhi, is betting the residential
markets in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore will benefit from demand
for homes from the middle class, Bedi said. The company is
starting to see some value in retail properties and in central
business districts that don’t have an oversupply, he said.

Best Opportunities

“The opportunities in real estate have turned into the
best we’ve had in a number of years, including in 2009, when we
made a lot of money when nobody wanted to invest because
everybody thought the end of the world was here,” Bedi said.
“I think this is a better time to invest than even that time.”

Private equity real estate funds made six investments
valued at $162 million during the three months ended June,
according to data from Venture Intelligence, a research company
that tracks private equity, and mergers and acquisitions. That
compared with 15 investments valued at $573 million during the
March quarter, it said.

“A lot of capital was raised for real estate in 2006 and
2007 and most of that capital hasn’t come back or isn’t going to
generate an appropriate return for investors,” Bedi said.

Disappointed Investors

Foreign real estate investors have been disappointed by
returns from India, both in private equity and public markets,
he said. There are few property investors left in India and they
don’t have capital, Bedi said, adding that the decline in deals
is not a reflection of a decrease in investor sentiment but more
a function of the lack of available capital.

Red Fort has invested 1.2 billion rupees ($21 million) in
an office complex in New Delhi by Parsvnath Developers Ltd. and
1.5 billion rupees in a residential project by The 3C Company in
Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi.

“For those that are willing to invest in this market, 25
percent annualized returns are very easily achieved,” Bedi said.

U.S. investors have not been able to get such returns
because they don’t have the appropriate real estate skills that
are required to invest in India, he said.